Bui and his colleagues have used Vader/Anakin as a case study to teach BPD to their medical students for the past few years. Realizing that a famous fictional example could spread awareness, they wrote a letter to the professional journal Psychiatry Research titled,"Is Anakin Skywalker [Vader's birth name] Suffering From Borderline Personality Disorder?" that is slated to appear in an upcoming issue. (While the letter itself isn't available, a Google search will lead to dozens more articles from both major and minor news sources.)

Bui says that as Vader/Anakin moved from childhood to adolescence, he showed problems with impulsivity, rage, and identity crisis--all of which are consistent with borderline personality disorder diagnosis. Media outlets have seized on the story as if Vader/Anakin were a real celebrity.

While the publicity is great, the example is wrong. BPD is a complex mental illness that's hard to understand and easy to misdiagnose. While Vader/Anakin seems to fit some of the criteria, a closer look shows the traits don't add up to provide a cohesive portrait of a person with the disorder.

At first glance, you might not think this is a vital topic--after all, it's just a movie. But I find it bothersome because Bui and others are using this false example to teach their psychiatric medical studients, for gosh sakes. And do we really want a mass murderer to become the newest face of those who suffer from this disorder? There are many others to use, Princess Diana being the best one.

Some Overall Mistakes

If Darth Vader were a real person, Linda Lyons-Bailey would be his biographer. Linda's Star Wars parable, "Midnight in the Garden," was a category award winner at the 2006 Hollywood Book Festival and was deemed a "remarkable achievement" by the Omni Peace Writing Awards in 2007. She also scripted the Star Wars fan audio drama, "Rise of Nobility." Linda is also a member of my Welcome to Oz family member support group community. Linda read this article and contributed mightily to this blog post. Thanks to her, I've been able to take a much deeper look than the media coverage out there. (Fans, please note that this post is based only on the films, not the expanded universe.)

Does Anakin/Vader meet some of these traits some of the time? Yes. But we all do. Also, borderline individuals have a deep sense of unworthiness and self-hatred. But as a young Jedi, Anakin has a sense of self worth. He is good and knows it. He feels the love from his mother and wife: borderline individuals have a hard time letting the love in.

Another big difference between borderline individuals and Anakin/Vader is the motivation or reasons behind the disordered emotions and behaviors. BPs don't have the coping skills or emotional stability most of us do. Their hurtful behaviors are not willful. Anakin/Vader, however, knows what he is doing. He deliberately makes moral choices (or immoral choices) to gain certain advantages. His are criminal acts, not borderline ones.

For an individual to be diagnosed with any of the 10 personality disorders, certain conditions must be met. Two of these are:

The pattern must be 'enduring and maladaptive' over the lifetime of the person.

As UCLA child adolescent psychiatrist Dr. H. Eric Bender points out in this article, Anakin shows borderline traits. But these do not persist into his adulthood. In other words, when Skywalker made the transformation to Darth Vader, he was firm in his identity as a villain (save a last minute change of heart when he saves his son's life). You can find more information about BPD and adolescence in this former blog post.

The pattern must exist across a broad range of situations and with many people.

As you will see later in this article, some of the traits are isolated to specific people (such as his wife) or just certain circumstances.

Why Vader Doesn't Meet Specific Traits

Frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment

Article: "Abandonment issues surfaced. Skywalker had a permanent fear of losing his wife, Padme Amidala, and he went so far as to betray his Jedi mentors and companions to try to prevent her death."

It is true that Anakin/Vader murders an entire Order of Jedi Knights and helps the Emperor become a cruel dictator so Anakin won't lose his wife Padme in childbirth. However, there are two reasons why this doesn't meet the BPD criteria:

1. People with BPD fear abandonment when most people don't. They may become jealous over insignificant things, or become upset when an expected phone call is delayed and worry the relationship is over. Anakin/Vader, on the other hand, has real reason: he has vivid premonitions that his wife will die in childbirth. Also, Anakin/Vader handles his months-long war-related periods away from his wife as well as any deployed soldier.

2. The fear of abandonment must be a pattern; a consistent way of relating to many people. Vader/Anakin has fears for just one person (his wife).

A pattern of unstable and intense interpersonal relationships characterized by alternating between extremes of idealization and devaluation ("splitting")

Article: "The future Darth Vader went back and forth between idealizing and devaluing Jedi mentors, such as a humorless young Obi-Wan Kenobi."

Folks with borderline personality disorder tend to see things in black and white, including people. Not being able to see the gray in people is called "splitting." Splitting can happen quickly, as it can in children when they hate mommy one hour and love her the next.

Anakin/Vader's changes of heart toward Kenobi, however, are generally gradual and take place as often as one might see in any other student-teacher relationship. As a Jedi, Anakin is able to see both the good and the bad in his relationship with Kenobi, and has no trouble telling Padme both sides of it at once.Once he becomes a Sith, his attitude toward Kenobi is again stable, for almost two decades. Furthermore, the Jedi has many stable relationships, including that of his wife.

Article: "Any "Star Wars" fan would recognize Skywalker's identity issues and uncertainty about who he was. His fateful turn to the dark side and change of name to Darth Vader could represent the ultimate sign of such identity disurbance."

In a 1993 edition of the Harvard Review of Psychiatry, Robert J. Waldinger discusses the issue of "identity diffusion" in BPD. He explains that people with BPD don't feel like they have a "self."

Identity diffusion refers to borderline patients' profound and often terrifying sense that they do not know who they are. Normally, we experience ourselves consistently through time in different settings and with different people. This continuity of self is not experienced by the person with BPD.

Instead, borderline patients are filled with contradictory images of themselves that they cannot integrate. Patients commonly report that they feel empty inside, that there's "nothing to me," and that they are different people depending on whom they are with.

Anakin, however, is quite full of himself! He often remarks about how good he is as a pilot or a swordsman; he becomes upset when he is passed over for an honor (such as Jedi Master) that he thinks he deserves.

Over the course of three films (and a decade over Anakin's life) the filmmakers make a strong case for why Anakin makes the choice to change his allegiance from Jedi to Ultra-Evil Sith. In fact, the central question in the prequel films is why he chooses to do so. His reasons may not make sense to us, but they don't meet the standard for BPD.

Clinically, anger in BPD is called "inappropriate" because the level of anger seems to be more intense than is warranted by the situation or event that triggered it. For example, a person with BPD may react to an event that may seem small or unimportant to someone else (e.g., a misunderstanding) with very strong feelings of anger and unhealthy expressions of anger (e.g., yelling, being sarcastic or becoming physically violent).

Generally, when Anakin becomes angry or upset, he has his reasons. Someone he loves has been badly hurt or killed, or a mission vital to the survival of the Empire is at stake. While he is angry when he murders (a trait of antisocial personality disorder, by the way) most of the time his murders are strategic or motivational tactics endorsed by the Sith. He is just as capable of not murdering if it would better serve his objective.

Yes, Anakin is known as somewhat of a daredevil, and his risk-taking in combat unnerves Obi-Wan Kenobi. However, Anakin's skills exceed anyone else's in the known galaxy. When he tries these stunts, he knows he can complete them; he finds his mastery of them exhilarating. He does try one stunt he can't complete safely, but this is just one instance he takes an unwise risk. In Hollywood, stuntmen and women take risks every day.

Anakin/Vader has one dissociative episode after he slaughters a local tribe of Tuskens responsible for his mother's death. But it is neither a pattern nor the more everyday type of dissociation typical in people with BPD. Finding your mother's killers is rather a once-in-a-lifetime sort of thing.

Affective instability due to a marked reactivity of mood (e.g., intense episodic dysphoria, irritability, or anxiety usually lasting a few hours and only rarely more than a few days).

Chronic feelings of emptiness

To sum up, out of the DSM-IV-TR's nine borderline traits, Anakin/Vader has one of them. Five are needed for a diagnosis.

Happily, there are two bright spots in this coverage. Using a popular film character to spread awareness of this disorder is commendable. Plus, attention has been paid to the fact that adolescents can suffer from BPD. (In addition to my blog post, you can look at this one for more info). Perhaps it's a sign that the good side of the force is at work.

If you're interested in exploring this topic in more detail, you can visit Linda's website. There is also a discussion on a Star Wars site here.

Randi Kreger is the owner of BPDCentral.com and the Welcome to Oz online family community. You can find her books "The Essential Family Guide to Borderline Personality Disorder," "The Stop Walking on Eggshells Workbook," "Stop Walking on Eggshells," and "Splitting: Protecting Yourself While Divorcing a Borderline or Narcissist," at her store at BPDCentral.com.

I ask you point blank, do you have a personality disorder? Do you know what it is like to live with a "parent fail" to which no matter how much you rise above, become educated, or logically, emotionally deal with an unconscious drive that tells you that you are nothing, you are subject to the knowledge that there is no amount of science or therapy that will dissolve that "monster" from within your cells?

I find it very interesting that the people who diagnose BPD, are the ones analyzing it, defining it, but still they don't get it. For example, BPD is changing with each version of the DSM. I can refute logically every point you have that Anakin is not BPD. Do you know why the article you have written causes damage? Because trying to explain to family members what is wrong helps when there are clear examples that can be related to such as Anakin. What happens when an article like this appears, is that the unconscious monster of self-loathing is fed because you further invalidate, almost gaslight, an obvious example of BPD that can help shed light on a problem caused by invalidation of extremely bright feeling youths. In short, you hurt those with BPD by this article.

Anakin did not have a parent fail? Are you kidding me? She was a slave, she GAVE him up, freely. A little boy does NOT understand that no matter how much he thinks he does. He cried all the time. BPD people OFTEN are talented bright and use self-absorption or arrogance to hide their self-loathing. Why do you think Anakin was always "saving" Obi-wan? " I hate you-don't leave me", perhaps? You are very wrong in your analysis, Randi. Anakin was constantly invalidated his entire life by people who were simply threatened by his gifts. BPD people do not know "which world" to believe because they cannot see the motivation behind the belief systems being imposed upon them. BPD people are pushed and pushed by people who are threatened by their talent and independence and by people who want to use them for it. BPD people do not want to believe that some people are psychopaths and when confronted with it freak out. Anakin, in the SCI FI movie, is CONTROLLED by the dark side, like getting to close to a black hole. You just "brush off" the end, that Anakin completely goes back on everything he dedicated his life to?

Randi, when you were a kid, did you ever close one eye and look around, then switch and close the other and then look around? Did you keep doing that wondering about why the perspective kept changing? BPD people feel like this because usually they are surrounded by severe criticism, people who feel threatened by them, and they are smart enough to understand that those people have their own problems but trouble understanding reality and who they are because EVERYONE on the planet TELLS THEM WHO THEY SHOULD BE. BPD people become angry when they want that shit to stop and start to see through it but feel powerless with all their talent and power. In a way they are very innocent. Yes, Anakin self-loathed, and yes Anakin did not know whose perspective to believe, was Obi-wan, a constant nag to him, good, or was the person who was the most "kind" to him, Palpatine good? Anakin did not know with each new circumstance.

Take a little puppy that will grow up to be a wolf. A cruel person will be cruel to the puppy because they know that when it grows up and gains its power, it WILL be powerful, but it won't have the capacity to ever "see itself" past a puppy. Cruel people do this to humans and puppies, and I hope you never scoff at what I just said. BPD people start out as young, bright, caring children with talent, whose surrounding parents and family feel threatened. Like Hercules as a child. Surrounding people tell the BPD person that the "have power" but it should be used for ___. This is where is gets tricky for non BPD to understand. Even though BPD KNOW they have power and use it, and APPEAR confident, does not mean that they do not feel confused at which reality to choose. That is why they occasionally let loose on ANYONE who finally crosses that line again when they are sick of being messed with.

Obi-wan did NOT want the responsibility of Anakin, and, yes, resented him. He did this as DUTY. It came out as SEVERE constant criticism for which Obi-wan apologizes as HE grows as a person. Obi-wan and abandonment was a HUGE parent fail for Anakin. Abandoned by almost everyone either by death or being used EXCEPT his wife. That is why he felt frantic.

So know you have this article, and its' out there, and it adds to so many people thinking they know what's going on with BDP people, but you don't. You are just another version of reality that is really messed up.

First, let me say that I enjoyed reading this article. However, I just wanted to point a few things out:

"Also, borderline individuals have a deep sense of unworthiness and and self-hatred."

In the Expanded Universe (comics, games, etc), Darth Vader apaprently hates and questions himself. However, I don't know much about Vader outside the movies and haven't read/played/watched any EU pertaining to him. I don't think this affected him as a kid either so it probably shouldn't count.

That's called falling to the Dark Side in Star Wars. Vader does get into a lot of fights and often uses uncontrolled rage in fights. Again, this is only as Darth Vader and didn't exist when he was Anakin Skywalker, as far as I know at least.

Otherwise, everything seems to be valid as far as I know (which admittedly isn't much). At best, 3 isn't enough so I do acknowledge that he probably does not have BPD.

Again, I enjoyed this article, just wanted to point out somethings that were, technically speaking, false.

First, a great big thank you to Randi for letting me participate in this blog article!

Just want to say that the website is still under construction. The links to all the info on Vader and BPD are up, but I am still working on the narcissism and APD ones. These first three took most of this month to do and frankly, I need a break! The other two PD's will go up soon.

Hi, Tyler! I did consider carefully what you are talking about. The main reasons I disagree are:

1.) By the time the Empire is formed, Vader has done a great deal to be terribly, terribly ashamed of. It is one thing to have real guilt, over acts one actually can point to and did do. Most of us would consider it abnormal if someone did the acts Vader has and did not feel guilt! This isn't the same as BPD feelings of self-hatred. These seem to come from nowhere in severe cases of BPD where there was no history of abuse, or they may stem from early childhood incidents of sexual abuse or severe physical or emotional abuse of the baby or young child. These feelings are deep, horrible, and pervasive, and don't go away without treatment. There's a big difference between BPD guilt and self-hatred and a monstrous murderer feeling bad about something he's done.

2.) Without writing another whole blog post, I think there's ample evidence that "falling to the dark side" is actually a choice that's then rationalized, sort of like "The devil made me do it," and then the person continues to make criminal choices habitually--i.e., without thinking about it anymore. (We could probably debate this on the SW message boards for a month!) However, Vader uses uncontrolled rage in a fight because that's part and parcel of what the Sith teach. "Use your aggressive feelings, boy!" Also, imagine that Vader knew, say, that if he killed a certain underling he definitely had no one better to promote, meaning that if he didn't rein himself in Luke would go unfound. I really think under conditions like this he could show restraint. We don't see him do it, but he could. (Imagine what the Emperor would do to him if he couldn't!) This ability to reflect and show restraint is what sets him apart from someone with BPD. BP's often do things that, for instance, will probably end their love relationship, but they can't think of the consequences of their actions in the moment.

I am saddened and frustrated that doctors, scientists and otherwise intelligent people are spending time analyzing a fictional character. As a person who suffers from BPD, I look forward to learning about new treatments, new discoveries and insights into the illness. For weeks I have seen articles about this nonsense through my Google alerts of BDP and I thought I had seen the last.

It's hard enough to get people to understand that BPD is serious, relevant and in need of research dollars. These Darth Vader discussions do not add to BPD's credibility as a real illness.

Some people think the way that you do, and some think that visibility of an illness helps with research dollars. Heart disease kills more women than breast cancer, but gets a lot less research money because it has no pink ribbons. I like visibility, but I want people to get it right. When it's wrong it does get very irritating--why not focus on a real person with the authentic disorder?

I can totally understand the viewpoint of the BPD sufferer who writes above, and I almost didn't chime in here because I didn't want this person to feel ganged up on.

But upon reflection, I feel like I really want to speak a bit more about this.

Fiction on the whole is not worthless in helping society understand and deal with real problems by any stretch of the imagination, be they mental illness or otherwise. That's why humanity invented things like the Oscars, the Pulitzer, the Man Booker, or the National Book Award. To say that fiction can't do anything valuable to solve human problems is to call, say, T.H. White trash. But T.H. White isn't trash...his versions of the King Arthur legends are classics. Nobody thinks of, say, White Oleander as nonsense.

We just don't view Star Wars in the same league. These are movies made primarily for children, with tons of special effects, that came heavily marketed and promoted with a lot of merchandise and toys. Therefore, they must be silly. Sad to say, the writing wasn't as good on the last three that were made, and neither was the acting. Oh, and they made TONS of money. I think this aspect of things is what the poster may be reacting to when she is talking about nonsense.

Just because serious, literary, classic-level work has never been done with Star Wars doesn't mean it *can't* be done. There are so many mythic and spiritual aspects to these stories that they would lend themselves easily to this kind of literature if the licensors cared to take it in this direction.

I've noticed in my own experiences that people love, love, *love* Star Wars. They love the movies. They love the characters. SW fans love these stories so much that they will stick with difficult concepts and apply themselves to understanding them, if they are presented as part of a SW story.

I saw Randi trying to explain BPD in a TV interview a few weeks ago. It's such a tough thing to explain to other people. She had to talk for five or ten minutes, and even then the lay person's grasp of the disorder, the feelings, and what it means to suffer with this problem is hazy and not so compelling. But when you use a movie character people already know and love, they have a framework to put it in, and they are engaged and not bored. So much of getting the funding and the new discoveries you want lies in educating the public.

So when you want to use SW to explain to the public at large a tough concept like personality disorders, mental illness, and why it's important that we understand them, treat them, and fund research, Star Wars and other highly visible media brands like it, can actually be a valuable ally and a powerful tool. IF we as a society care enough to put it/them to that kind of beneficial use.

If Darth Vader has BPD, would this be positive or negative publicity for BPD awareness? As a BPD sufferer, I would say neither. I am imagining talking to my friends or family, who barely understand my plight: "hey, you know my disease is just like what Darth Vader has" or "hey, I am much healthier than Darth Vader". Either way, I would look ridiculous.

Currently, we have "Fatal Attraction", "Single White Female" and "Girl, Interrupted" as examples of BPD in movies. I have read doctors and other mental health professionals talk endlessly about the disservice that Fatal Attraction did for the illness. If we know this, then why compare BPD and Darth Vader? Darth Vader is a "bad guy". We need positive models for BPD.

As a male borderline myself, I find it stunning how close Anakin's behavior is to mine in ROTS. Remember that here, you are dealing with metaphors. You are taking the DSM WAY too literally.

The issues that Anakin is facing with authority figures are quite typical of BPD. The relationship between Anakin and Obi-Wan is quite volatile, shifting from love to hate. Crying when he says that he hates Obi-Wan while his flesh is burning? That is conflicted to me! It's actually quite an amazing representation of how I feel when I hurt people around me. Do I love them? Do I hate them? That scene is a bullseye!

Anakin always feeling all powerful? Not after confessing to Padme he killed the sandspeople. (All while crying, mind you, typical conflicted emotion.) How can you say that this reaction was a choice? It seems that he was carried away by his impulsivity.

You can argue that the details might be wrong sometimes, but the spirit of the work is quite fine. There is a lot of evidence that this is not a coincidence, and that Lucas actually made this choice knowingly, or at least based his characterization on

The DSM-IV is a joke when dealing with BPD and ASPD. Read the revisions for the DSM-V for these two disorders. So you can throw that checklist in the garbage for all I care. Also, most of the books published on BPD are concerned with women, not with men, and the area of work interractions for male borderlines is greatly ill-studied.

For one, I think it's a very compassionate depiction of BPD. Not perfect, but the best there is in popular culture on males. There is a limit on how close you can make it in this type of movie. But it's a great start, and shows that there is more top male BPDs than cutting and booze.

But if you want to see the best depiction of BPD ever on males, just watch Evangelion. (Yes, another geeky sci-fi work. Too bad.) Hideaki Anno is a bordeline himself, and his work, while quite naive, is very telling of how male borderlines can feel, particularly in a work setting.

" a compassionate version of BPD" and the "The DSM-IV is a joke when dealing with BPD"

Borderlines are smart enough to help each other and help themselves. It is the Borderline that needs to unite with each other and help each other see the gifts they have. Borderlines need to do what gays did - organize together and tell people to stop being ignorant and back off!

Certainly there's not enough about borderline men; I agree there. I also like that it's an example that doesn't involve cutting or suicide. The whole area of BPD at work is unstudied.

I think if someone is going to use Anakin as a case study in teaching, the teacher should take the DSM VERY literally, and that the details should be right. Psychiatrists deal with people, not metaphors, and the right diagnosis is essential to getting the right treatment.

It's very interesting to me that you think you and Anakin are a close match in a lot of ways. I'm trying to write a novel with a male borderline character, and it's a real nail-biter to do since I don't know any male borderlines...only female.

Having said that, I disagree based on the following points:

Even if moments in Anakin's life do mirror the situations and feelings closely, the pattern must be 'enduring and maladaptive' over the lifetime of the person, and the pattern must exist across a broad range of situations and with many people. That's my main question mark here. I just don't see the problem as being enduring and stable enough over the course of Vader's life to qualify as a personality disorder.

Also, there's a discussion about this also going on over at theforce.net. We had a psychologist stop by over there and point out that when Anakin gets upset because his feelings are invalidated, that really is for a real reason. The child is separated from his mother, probably forever, and is told not to be upset about it; Obi-Wan speaks to him in a condescending and patronizing manner that would upset just about any kid. If I'm not mistaken, borderlines will of course get upset about this kind of treatment just as anyone will; but they will also imagine slights that aren't there, and infer things from the behavior of other people that aren't meant. I don't see this kind of thing in the films with Anakin specifically.

Anyway, I always find these kinds of discussions fascinating and could keep on writing on, but it's a blog comment...I'm wrapping it up. Thanks for posting.

I agree with the people in this article. I think it's an irresponsible thing to say because it just perpetuates the stigma about BPD. It's about as helpful as saying that Normal Bates is a positive role model for people with Schizophrenia. It's still pretty funny though!

I just had to reply about the part about his fears about abandonment. He had it with Padme, his mother, and Obi-Wan. But I agree that you shouldn't diagnose Vader or any villainous character with a real mental illness. It is reductive of their character choices and it stigmatizes the illness.